The hard truth about Howard

Peter Reith lost his battle to become federal president of the Liberal Party, but the reforms he calls for in his now-released 2010 election review might yet be realised.
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by
Pamela Williams

On a cold-as-ever winter’s day, the 33-strong federal executive of the Liberal Party gathered in Sydney in a room reminiscent of Old Parliament House in Canberra. A heavy atmosphere and dark wood-panelling conjured an air of bygone days.

READ THE REPORTS

Peter Reith’s review of the 2010 federal election

Tony Staley’s review of the 2007 election campaign

But it was the future, not the past, that these powerbrokers from the Liberal Party had come to vote for as they met on level eight of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices on Monday. In a meeting which kicked off at 11.30 and concluded at 4, the recently vanquished challenger for the federal presidency of the party,
Peter Reith
, had his moment in the sun. After the roughing up he had received from party head-kickers to defeat him at the federal council three weeks ago, Reith had the satisfaction of seeing his turning-point review of the party adopted pretty much in whole.

Tony Staley’s review of the lost 2007 election contained a string of recommendations of how the party machine should change. Neither the report, nor the changes, saw the light of day for years.
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And there was this satisfaction too: Opposition Leader
Tony Abbott
, a friend of Reith who had commissioned the report and encouraged Reith to run as president, but then inexplicably voted against him, now acknowledged the debt by leading the support in the room to adopt Reith’s report.

This was a signature meeting, for Reith had proposed an opening up of the party and a string of measures to crimp the tight control of the party machine and develop new rules that could hack back factional power and improve the way parliamentary candidates were chosen. Reith made no secret of his belief that it was time to open the windows, and he conveyed his opinions in straightforward and characteristically blunt prose.

He started by demanding transparency. Of the 34 recommendations in “Reith", the very first recommendation had the potential to solve a three-year-old mystery. What ever had happened to a previous report, known as the Staley Report, which had been commissioned by the party as a post-mortem into the harrowing 2007 election defeat of the Howard government?

Reith’s recommendation No. 1 said the Staley Report should be given to every member of the federal executive and that moreover, party director
Brian Loughnane
should explain, in writing, what had been done to implement Staley thus far.

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After being delivered to the party machine, led by the federal president Alan Stockdale and federal director Brian Loughnane, above, Staley’s report was put into a bottom drawer.
Photo: Stefan Postles.

Tony Staley
, a former Fraser government minister, party elder and one of the wiliest federal presidents the party has ever had, possessed a profound knowledge of both the black and white arts of political strategy. He was a member of the power group that orchestrated the return of
John Howard
to the leadership in 1995, and he had been centre-stage in several leadership dramas that preceded Howard. Gentle in demeanor, he was a biting foe of Labor.

Staley and his committee – Liberal frontbencher and former federal director
Andrew Robb
and former party treasurer
John Calvert-Jones
– had interviewed far and wide across the party before finalising their report in 2008. And then, as the party executive waited for the findings, the Staley Report simply vanished. After being delivered to the party machine, led by the current federal president
Alan Stockdale
and federal director Brian Loughnane, it was put into a bottom drawer.

Many called for it to be produced. Former treasurer
Peter Costello
was reported telling a Liberal gathering in 2009 that it was a disgrace that 18 months after the Howard defeat, Liberals still did not know why they had lost. The party “was not good at introspection", Costello declared. The suppression of Staley gave rise to colourful rumours across the party that the report was either so damning that it could not be seen, or had been so redacted by the party machine that it was now a useless document and Staley had washed his hands of it. There was sharp criticism in party forums of Stockdale and Loughnane for stifling the findings.

The Staley Report, which has not yet been given to the federal executive, remains faithful to its brief – a post-mortem of the 2007 election with a string of recommendations, many of them reflected in the more contemporary Reith report.

After years in the bottom draw, the Staley report has emerged.
AFR

Were it not for Reith, many might see the Staley Report now as an oddity of the past, out of time and out of date. But Reith has made it abundantly clear that Staley and his committee had tackled many of the core issues the Liberals need to address to refresh the party. Reith gave it his own imprimatur this week, acknowledging the work of Staley and adopting much of it himself.

A copy of the Staley Report obtained by The Australian Financial Review reveals a softer-edged party appraisal than the one delivered by Reith. This lighter touch has the potential to reignite questions on the executive about whether the final copy remains faithful to the original draft delivered by Staley. Nevertheless, given the challenge of examining a catastrophic election defeat of a much-admired party leader, the Staley Report might also reflect the challenge of maintaining respect for an icon while conducting a warts-and-all inquiry.

Staley found that the primary factor resulting in the 2007 election loss was the longevity of the Howard government. It was a government that had failed to articulate a clear, new agenda.

“It was not that the Coalition did not have election policies. It was that there were not elements of a clear and credible long-term vision, and certainly not one which competed with the fresh image offered by the ALP," Staley wrote.

Liberal leader Tony Abbott shakes hands with Peter Reith at the election for party president in June. The day didn’t end happily for Reith after Abbott voted for Alan Stockdale.
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And Howard had to shoulder the blame for his own over-arching control of the party, steadily increased as each election victory was concluded.

“The former prime minister’s stature, long tenure and record led to so much responsibility being invested in him that some critical processes became ineffective. The Federal Executive of the party came to exert less influence over the direction of the government and the forthcoming campaign. There was no broad, top-level campaign committee. Nor was there a top-level policy committee involving all stakeholders. This played out both before and during the election in terms of both strategy and co-ordination."

Kevin Rudd
’s ascension had galvanised the mood for change and he had neutralised the government’s strength on the economy with a me-too campaign, differentiated himself from the Coalition on industrial relations policy, signed the Kyoto treaty and apologised to the “stolen generation", Staley wrote.

By contrast, Howard had announced that he would quit as prime minister half way through the next term, and this was a key factor in the election defeat. On top of all this, the trade unions had run a powerful campaign against the government, and the government had not responded until it was too late.

“Work Choices was the single biggest policy negative for the government during its final term in office and undoubtedly affected the outcome in numerous seats," Staley reported. He speculated that trade union spending attacking Work Choices had possibly outspent the ALP itself.

Staley pointedly outlined the damage caused to the Howard government by introducing industrial relations changes which had not been revealed prior to the 2004 election, the last time Howard was victorious.

“While reform of Labor’s unfair dismissal laws was canvassed extensively prior to the 2004 election, the need for Work Choices, especially the removal of the ‘no disadvantage test,’ was the subject of very little discussion prior to its introduction. Work Choices gave the ACTU an issue to rally around … by the time the Fairness test was introduced to restore a ‘no disadvantage test’, Work Choices was entrenched in the public mind as a negative."

In short, Staley reported, Labor had used Work Choices to drive a wedge with the so-called “Howard battlers" – socially conservative, blue-collar workers. These voters finally deserted the Coalition after a romance with Howard that had lasted more than a decade.

The dominance of Howard, and the fracturing of the role of the federal executive, had fused to reduce the co-ordination and the strategic dominance which had delivered the Coalition to power in 1996.

Both Staley and Reith are out now. The Federal Executive has welcomed both with open arms. Which way will the machine go? Only the future will tell.